Week 26.28 - Socials Roundup SPLIT SCREEN
06 July - 12 July 2026: How and When to Split Your Screen . . . and your audience's attention!
Week 26.28 posts include shots from The Thomas Crown Affair (1968); Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992); Monsterland (2020), L’innocent (2022); and Twinless (2025).
The Thomas Crown Affair
One of the films which really popularised the technique . . . to the point the artist who led the implementation was listed in the opening credits.
After the opening credits, this is the first splitscreen sequence; it doesn’t get as ‘moving the narrative along’ as some of the sequences, but it really ramps up the anxiety as you watch several characters move on different modes of transportation, the screens changing at different times as the score blasts along beneath it.
Coming out on a watch continues to drive the anxiety this sequence built.
The way it’s additive also builds anticipation: what will the next screen(s) pop up or change to show?
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Not all splits use a distinct line to divide the screen — this shot is clearly split into a closeup of a book and a wide of a train, but the split is effectively caused by the edge of the book.
Twinless
This week we looked in depth at two actual uses of splitscreen in this movie about two sets of twins . . . but Twinless also creates a bit of faux splitscreen here.
The white table surface and the darker upper half of the screen divide it, and then the reflective surface of the conference table also ‘splits’ its characters into ‘twins’ of themselves.
L’innocent
This shot works on the level of letting us see three things at once — what Abel (Louis Garrel) is doing sitting very still as he spies on people he suspects; what the suspects are up to; what is happening at the gallery party Abel recently left — but it also works on a fun, literal level.
L’innocent may be a heisty noir involving ex-cons, but it also has a very cheeky vibe, so the way this splitscreen visually exemplifies a figure of speech is in keeping with its sense of humour.
We see ‘who Abel is keeping his eyes on,’ or, put another way, we’re shown ‘what is on Abel’s mind,’ and occasionally what is being said in one third of the screen has an impact on what’s happening in another.
Monsterland
Episode five “Plainfield, IL” of this psychological drama horror anthology covers several years of a relationship between Kate (Taylor Schilling) and Shawn (Roberta Colindrez).
This split screen shot comes soon after Shawn sees something disturbing, and Kate begins acting strangely. At first, you’re not sure if the screen is split by architecture, or done in post; note the beam dividing the shot, and the off-kilter angles of the white doorframes. That ‘slight weirdness’ is deliberate.
It’s the only time a shot like this is used in the episode, and it works because it’s right at the start of the characters (and us) knowing something unsettling is going on, but not yet beginning to grasp quite what . . .
Further breakdown of what makes it feel so ‘off,’ including a diagram, at our post here.